There and Back Again - a tale of our road trip to Cannon Beach

A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you've been taking. ~Earl Wilson

So here we are...our first day out.  We drove to GV to pick Mom and Paul up and get ready to head to the coast.  Here is Riley B. road trippin' in his bed.  He didn't get to ride this way  once we all got in the car.  He was limited to the middle of the back seat between Mom and Paul.

So...our first day officially on the road we stopped at The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City Oregon.  There was a lot of information at his site, that you can also find in SLC at the Church's History museum as well as This is the Place Heritage Park.  We could see where the wagons had left deep tracks from that many years ago.  There were volunteers working at the park which made it fascinating.

One gal brought in a couple of oxen that would have been used to pull the wagons....I had no idea they were so BIG, but handsome looking beasts.  The handler was very entertaining and quite a character.

Mom with one of the oxen...Mom is about 5'2

This gal was offering biscuits with jam or molasses.  She was also offering coffee.  The display made it look like they were cooking them right over the fire, but to my dismay, they brought them out of the visitor center.  No authentic biscuits, but they tasted mighty fine with marion berry jam.

We learned there was a gal by the name of Sheryl K Curtis who was a Bull whacker - not quite a name sake, but close.

 

Here is a picture of most of the Motley Crew (someone had to take the picture)

 

 

We stopped in Pendleton for lunch at a little place called New York Richies.  We got Philly cheese sandwiches which were huge!  Took half of mine to go for a midnight snack.  They were quite tasty.

 

 

We ended our first day of driving at Hood River. A great little town right on the Columbia River.  Our hotel room overlooked the river on the ground level.  Riley sat at the door and begged to be out in the grass.  There were lots of good smells and he wasn't cooped up in the room.  This is a photo taken from just outside our room

 

 

 

We made sure to drive over the bridge to the Washington side of the river.  The bridge was much narrower than we thought.  Here is a picture of Mount Hood Paul took from the bridge

 

We found an ice cream shop and wrapped the day up with a Hucklebery shake. 

First day of the trip over...completely satisfied.